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--- alternate_history:conveniently_sudden_death [2014/07/25 12:40] – [Navigation] Petike
+++ alternate_history:conveniently_sudden_death [2019/03/29 15:13] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 Simply put, whenever an author needs to get rid of a historical personality whose further existence, work and deeds might prove inconvenient to the author's [[timeline]] in some way, said author usually opts for solutions like giving the person in question a heart attack, a sudden onset of deadly health problems, a mortal injury in some serious accident, or have him/her get accidentally killed or willfully assasinated.
-As with most writing conventions and tropes, the overuse of this solution to a narrative or [[pods/pods|POD]] problem can easily cheapen its value and level of impact, both in a general sence, and in the specific story where it occurs. Too many convenient sudden deaths in a work - especially if they are contrived (even increasingly so) - is proof of the author being unable to come up with different solutions to what to do with historical personalities that might not be important to the timeline's story or might become a hindrance to its further progression.
+As with most writing conventions and tropes, the overuse of this solution to a narrative or [[pods:pods|POD]] problem can easily cheapen its value and level of impact, both in a general sense, and in the specific story where it occurs. Too many convenient sudden deaths in a work - especially if they are contrived (even increasingly so) - is proof of the author being unable to come up with different solutions to what to do with historical personalities that might not be important to the timeline's story or might become a hindrance to its further progression.
 A subtype of this cliché is that it often manifests itself in the oddly specific case of the person dying of a heart attack at just the right / wrong moment. Even if the person had a history of heart disease in real life (and in many examples they didn't!) wouldn't a much more likely cause of death at a random moment be a transport accident?